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Michael Beeching
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 Posted: Mon 11 Nov, 2019 2:00 pm Post subject: |
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I will confess that the arms makers are one of the driving factors in me wanting to go out and see a movie (or rent one). If anyone remembers "Seventh Son," ...and perhaps it's better if you've never heard of it or just chose to forget that it was made..., the fact that A&A made the weapons was a driving factor in me wanting to go out and see it. Great weapons, terrible movie.
Tod, perhaps you can tell us: with all of the talented writers, knowledgeable historians, and expert craftsmen in the world, how is it that no one can seem to muster together a production that covers all the bases when it comes to fantasy or historically-inspired films? Is the upper tier of production just overrun with dolts?
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 11 Nov, 2019 2:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Michael Beeching wrote: | | Tod, perhaps you can tell us: with all of the talented writers, knowledgeable historians, and expert craftsmen in the world, how is it that no one can seem to muster together a production that covers all the bases when it comes to fantasy or historically-inspired films? Is the upper tier of production just overrun with dolts? |
He covers some of that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF1VFlCnLQ4
Way to go Tod. You've just spoiled our favourite pastime. 
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Mon 11 Nov, 2019 2:25 pm Post subject: |
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I thought some of the costumes and kit looked nice enough, and there was a little bit of an air of verisimilitude that these things can rarely pull off.
The fighting parts were ridiculous. Did you notice the French force charged without any lances? That's pretty common though.
The Agincourt battle has already been pretty well deconstructed here so I won't pile on. By that time it started I was still trying desparatey to go along with the movie and maintain immersion, but it just fell apart despite my best efforts. In that sense it reminded me of that last Robin Hood movie with Cate Blanchette and Russell Crowe. I was actually liking it in the first act, kind of. But boy oh boy did it fall apart.
A lot of these seem to die on a pike in the third act especially.
Why not take off the armor? It never works in these films. I have a theory that all Hollywood and fantasy genre armor is made of cardboard. Then everything makes sense. I also thought they missed an easy opportunity just showing the English army marching around. They looked like a complete rabble of refugees. Why not just get them to march in little squares with banners, and give them a few long bills or something to help fend off cavalry. That would require very little choreography, hell hire some soldiers for extras, anybody who has been through boot camp can march in formation properly.
Watching them shuffling along with no particular organization, looking dispirited, I kept thinking "well one good French lance charge will wipe them out in two minutes flat."
But then I saw the French lance charge and they had no lances so there's that.
All in all, very disappointing. Some part of the crew of this was doing something right because I was kind of buying into it all in the first however many minutes. I did like the speech of the French princess too. But for the most part it was a complete waste.
Also get that French Dauphin some cleats.Or was that Viserys Targaryen?
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Mon 11 Nov, 2019 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Leo Todeschini wrote: | I particularly liked the daggers, belts and sword scabbards that were being worn by all the principles.......
Tod |
Those are exquisite Tod, did you provide those to the film ? They should have done more with what they had! I'd kill a Dauphin for any one of those...
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Mon 11 Nov, 2019 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Jonathan Dean wrote: |
There are several ways to adapt Henry V and some, such as Kenneth Branagh's 1990 movie, do a better job of showing battle as inglorious, which seems to be what the director was going for with The King's version of Agincourt. There are also several ways to undercut the idea of Henry V as some great and glorious king, most of which involve showing him as he was and accurately showing what medieval warfare - not battles, but the "foraging", the looting, the horrific treatment of civilians, etc - was like. Trying to do both at once just doesn't work. |
Very well put. There were some allusions for Falstaff engaging in Chevauchee, but they didn't show any. They tried to depict Henry V as a conflicted man of peace, who had to be manipulated into fighting France. They always try to project some implausible variation of a modern mindset on people in these remote time periods.
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Hector Mendoza
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| Posted: Mon 11 Nov, 2019 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Leo Todeschini wrote: | I particularly liked the daggers, belts and sword scabbards that were being worn by all the principles.......
Tod |
I really liked the movie. I've watched it twice so far and I recognize a couple of the daggers. King Henry uses the fourth one from the left at least until the battle of Agincourt. Falstaff uses the third one from the left.
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Ian Hutchison
Location: Louisiana / Nordrhein-Westholland Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 626
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| Posted: Tue 12 Nov, 2019 3:41 am Post subject: |
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| Michael Beeching wrote: | I will confess that the arms makers are one of the driving factors in me wanting to go out and see a movie (or rent one). If anyone remembers "Seventh Son," ...and perhaps it's better if you've never heard of it or just chose to forget that it was made..., the fact that A&A made the weapons was a driving factor in me wanting to go out and see it. Great weapons, terrible movie.
Tod, perhaps you can tell us: with all of the talented writers, knowledgeable historians, and expert craftsmen in the world, how is it that no one can seem to muster together a production that covers all the bases when it comes to fantasy or historically-inspired films? Is the upper tier of production just overrun with dolts? |
You and I aren't the audience. The masses who make up the overwhelming majority of the viewership do not care about accuracy that much. Therefore in the minds of those involved the priorities are different and other factors take precedence: look, spectacle, cost, visibility, safety etc.
It sucks, but unless we have a diehard fan of the setting and historicity in charge of the process, or the project is intended for our very niche audience, we aren't going to see many films which satisfy our desired standards.
'We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose.' - Adrian Carton de Wiart
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Tue 12 Nov, 2019 6:58 am Post subject: |
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This always comes up in these discussions, the notion that the realistic stuff isn't "cinematic" and that the made up Tropes are better. I always challenge this and have done for years. Admittedly they are two different goals, on the one hand to present an entertaining spectacle for the audience, on the other to portray reality. Strictly speaking the first takes priority and the second only matters if it enhances the first.
But the assumption that they are mutually exclusive is flawed. Yes, if you try too hard for realism you can sometimes trip over your story, but they (Hollywood, BBC, whatever) go so far in the other direction that they create a muddle that doesn't make any sense no matter how little you know about the world portrayed. This film is an excellent example. The plot of the third act hinges on whether or not to take off armor. Why would anyone wear armor? It doesn't protect you from either edge or point, it doesn't fit properly, inhibits vision, movement and breath, so what is the use of it? You might as well wear a scuba suit and a weight belt. The fact that the plot points up the armor makes it pretty hard to ignore this logical flaw.
That the characters in the film seem completely oblivious to these obvious problems makes them seem irredeemably stupid and therefore unrelateable, and this is where you start to tune it out. Unfortunately one of the most persistent Tropes about the world prior to 1500 is that everyone was irredeemably stupid (ala Monty Python) and if you imply otherwise I think modern filmmakers feel like they may be opening themselves up for ridicule from the audience. But of course the fact is that people weren't any more stupid than we are today, in fact guys like Henry V were considerably smarter tacticians than 99% of any TV audience, and his opponents weren't imbeciles either.
By more or less randomly replacing the actual mechanics of war and personal combat with the hunches of the director or whomever, hunches made without any knowledge or understanding of the world they are if not trying to portray realistically, at least 'riffing' from... it often falls on it's face.
If armor doesn't work and nobody has lances and the armies aren't organized in any discernible way on the battlefield, but you are still putting people in their (ill fitting, ridiculous looking) armor and showing them jousting and strategizing based on real world situations, when you have supposedly great warriors staggering around off balance swinging swords like they were sledge-hammers... the audience is left wondering why nothing makes sense.
Like Shakespeare, the best fantasy authors started from the basis of knowing something about the actual history, and when filmmakers and 'showrunners' do the same and at least borrow elements from reality, it often works out better. Game of Thrones was hardly a realistic show by any measure, but the author Martin borrowed heavily from history for his treacherous twisting and turning plot and scheming families - a big reason for the shows popularity. When they did pull bits and pieces from real battles, for example the use of pavise shields and archers and reserve formations in the famous "Battle of the Bastards" episode, it made for a better and more entertaining story.
When you watch a Kurosawa Samurai film it has a satisfying verisimilitude that makes the experience valuable for both the dilettante and the martial artist alike.
So I think there is actually a "synergy", to use a detestable corporate term, between at least starting from an understanding of the real actual nature of what you are portraying, and making good entertainment out of it. The notion that the two are mutually exclusive, even in an historical film, is a cop out to me. When you are doing the equivalent of putting M-16s in the hands of US civil war soldiers or giving rapid fire repeating crossbows to Roman Legionnaires, it has a way of melting the connections between all the plot elements and turning the whole thing into an embarrassing, sticky sort of puddle that the audience wants to forget stepping in as soon as possible. Which sadly I believe will be the fate of this latest film "The King" as with so many others.
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Ian Hutchison
Location: Louisiana / Nordrhein-Westholland Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 626
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| Posted: Tue 12 Nov, 2019 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | This always comes up in these discussions, the notion that the realistic stuff isn't "cinematic" and that the made up Tropes are better. I always challenge this and have done for years. Admittedly they are two different goals, on the one hand to present an entertaining spectacle for the audience, on the other to portray reality. Strictly speaking the first takes priority and the second only matters if it enhances the first.
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Agreed, I have always been of the opinion that accurate material culture and methods would be no less entertaining than those that are fantasy, and in most instances no more difficult to implement.
That said, some might argue feasibility in regard to historical vs contemporary behavior. Historical norms, attitudes, speech, and mannerisms etc. were different enough in some respects to make identifying with a character or their motivations more difficult for some viewers. Especially without some, perhaps substantial, background knowledge. For example: attitudes toward justice, sexuality, race, violence, the impact/role of religion, social systems, hierarchies, obligations, constraints etc., etc... The list would be extensive. There would be situations where we find the protagonists behavior disturbing, even reprehensible by the standards of our time, but not unusual for theirs (and no doubt they would feel the same about some of our practices).
Take speech patterns and vocabulary. Initially, the show runners for HBO's 'Deadwood' (set in the 1870s iirc) wanted to use more period correct speech, including profanity, but in testing audiences felt the result was comedic rather than dramatic, so the idea was scrapped.
Of course, not only would these considerations perhaps make relating to, and understanding characters and actions more difficult, it would make the writing a challenge. For how many writers would have the required knowledge themselves to produce accurate material?
'We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose.' - Adrian Carton de Wiart
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Jonathan Dean
Location: Australia Joined: 16 Feb 2019
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| Posted: Tue 12 Nov, 2019 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | So I think there is actually a "synergy", to use a detestable corporate term, between at least starting from an understanding of the real actual nature of what you are portraying, and making good entertainment out of it. The notion that the two are mutually exclusive, even in an historical film, is a cop out to me. When you are doing the equivalent of putting M-16s in the hands of US civil war soldiers or giving rapid fire repeating crossbows to Roman Legionnaires, it has a way of melting the connections between all the plot elements and turning the whole thing into an embarrassing, sticky sort of puddle that the audience wants to forget stepping in as soon as possible. Which sadly I believe will be the fate of this latest film "The King" as with so many others. |
To add a little bit of veracity to this (although I'm much more cynical about The King's staying power), over on /r/AskHistorians the vast majority of questions we've been getting about the movie have been either along the lines of "how did everyone not kill all their friends when they couldn't tell each other apart" or "was that really how the Battle of Agincourt was fought?"
These might not be NFL fans or soccer mums, but they're also not massive history buffs either(1). they've still nonetheless managed to pick up the fact that something's not right about the way the battle was shot. Sure, plenty of people think the battle was really cool and super realistic, while others just don't care, but they would similarly think an authentic battle (as opposed to a strictly realistic one) was really cool or just not care regardless. If anything, a properly done Agincourt would be even better received because there's far less of a muddy masculinity vibe to it and far more a sense of an outright massacre(2).
| Ian Hutchison wrote: | | That said, some might argue feasibility in regard to historical vs contemporary behavior. Historical norms, attitudes, speech, and mannerisms etc. were different enough in some respects to make identifying with a character or their motivations more difficult for some viewers. Especially without some, perhaps substantial, background knowledge. For example: attitudes toward justice, sexuality, race, violence, the impact/role of religion, social systems, hierarchies, obligations, constraints etc., etc... The list would be extensive. There would be situations where we find the protagonists behavior disturbing, even reprehensible by the standards of our time, but not unusual for theirs (and no doubt they would feel the same about some of our practices). |
I don't know that anyone who wanted a show/movie to succeed would argue for strict accuracy but would mean more that they wanted something authentic to the period. Although I haven't watched it, what I've heard about Deadwood suggests that it's a good example of this. It might be far from realistic in many respects, especially the vocabulary and speech patterns, but it seems to have instead been faithful to how the town would have been perceived at the time, just updated so we can identify with that.
There's actually great line from Le roman de Silence that sums up how I think any sort of historical or history based fantasy project should be approached:
| Quote: | | I'm not saying that there isn't a good deal of fiction mingled with the truth in order to improve the tale, but if I am any judge of things, I'm not putting in anything that will spoil the work, nor will there be any less truth in it, for the truth should not be silenced. |
In practical terms, I think the best way to go about this is to use history as a Distant Mirror, much as that pains me to say. So, rather than going for 100% accuracy, we should be using medieval history to reflect on modern issues. For instance, I think a good series on the early stages of the Hundred Years' War could draw a lot of parallels to the invasion of Iraq, both making the scenario feel more familiar to the average viewer while also being able to criticize elements of the war that you just couldn't do in a big budget show or movie (like, you know, looking at Coalition war crimes against the civilians or making those fighting the invasion human rather than some evil towelheads deserving of the most brutal deaths possible).
If you want to focus on social issues, the similarities between the treatment of medieval victims of rape and domestic violence by the community as a whole and the modern treatment of them by society as a whole is uncomfortably similar. Elements of religious violence and discrimination, ethnic violence and discrimination, discrimination by the wealthy against the poor, etc, etc can at times seem all too similar to the modern world.
This is not to say that there aren't massive differences between the medieval and modern worlds in terms of standards, thought processes, etc, or that any movie or TV show based on the medieval world should be an analogy for modern problems and social justice. Medieval people are very much alien to our modern world and I don't think every show should be some cutting analogy for the modern world. However, by drawing on the similarities between past and present, scripwriters and directors can create a much more authentic medieval world with relatively minimal research themselves. Instead of seeing it as an alien world that needs to be sexed up for the modern audience, they need to start seeing it as a world that parallels ours in important ways that need no sexing up to be compelling to the modern viewer.
(1) Although I will concede that they might be fans of Shadiversity, Metatron, Skallagrim, Lindybeige or one of the other popular history YouTubers of varying quality.
(2) At least with the traditional interpretation, as updated by Clifford Rogers in The Hundred Years War (II): Different Vistas. I have a somewhat different take on matters that would tend more towards the muddy masculinity path when filmed.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Tue 12 Nov, 2019 11:35 pm Post subject: |
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I think the term you're after is "verisimilitude".
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Ian Hutchison
Location: Louisiana / Nordrhein-Westholland Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 626
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| Posted: Wed 13 Nov, 2019 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| Jonathan Dean wrote: |
If you want to focus on social issues, the similarities between the treatment of medieval victims of rape and domestic violence by the community as a whole and the modern treatment of them by society as a whole is uncomfortably similar. Elements of religious violence and discrimination, ethnic violence and discrimination, discrimination by the wealthy against the poor, etc, etc can at times seem all too similar to the modern world. |
These are exactly the kind of situation that I think illustrate my point. To the modern viewer, the depiction of certain situations, however analogous they may be to events/issues in our time, might engender reactions which are quite unlike those which would be appropriate for the contemporary population and the protagonist. How then will we identify with them? What if the protagonist engages in these situations and considers it completely normal or just?
For example, the retributions exacted against populations who forced a siege rather than surrender, or all kinds of religious persecution.
To us those acts would be inexcusable, in the mind of our protagonist (and maybe even the victims) they would be par for the course, a fact of life, an expected outcome, even just. How will the point the writer/director wants to make be driven home when these actions are normalized and approved of in their context? How will modern audiences identify with characters, especially protagonists, who condone this and do not even question it? The easy solution is either to have the characters act ahistorically , or do not depict situations/realities which would betray attitudes that alienate us.
'We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose.' - Adrian Carton de Wiart
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Wed 13 Nov, 2019 5:00 am Post subject: |
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I don't think you'll find morality then vs now as different as is being implied let alone shocking to audiences. These days there are popular shows with psychopath serial killer protagonists, like Dexter. Or most of the characters on Game of Thrones. I think audiences could handle a more plausible Henry V.
The truth is that mass-murder and abuse of civilians was far more common and widespread in the 20th Century than it was within Latinized Europe in the 15th. In fact there were probably more effective safeguards in place in the late medieval period (read up on the German concept of the Landfrieden) than in later times ala Geneva Convention etc. Of course some armies and some princes committed massacres in those days (as Henry V did) but that didn't necessarily mean it didn't raise an eyebrow at the time.
As for issues like race and sexuality, while there was prejudice and sectarianism across religious and language divides, race as such didn't have the connotations it later acquired in the Early Modern period. For example, this guy is the patron saint of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Emperors:
For gender, again women had more rights in many parts of Europe in the 15th Century than they did in the 19th. It's nowhere near equivalent to modern norms but there is more than enough wiggle room for relatable female protagonists in a story. I.e. it's not Puritains in 17th Century England. As for sexuality, there was severe repression in some areas but others not so much- again probably not that different from the 19th or early 20th Century. I'd recommend a look into the history of Florence where same sex relationships were certainly not unusual in the middle ages. And of course the upper nobility and wealthy in general often did as they pleased regardless.
As far as artistic license ala Deadwood, I don't really have a problem with that. Of course an artist is well within their rights to modify things to make them more fun or interesting or relatable. But start from somewhere real. When it comes to anything in pre-industrial Europe we tend to start from a really vague cartoonish cliche and it goes downhill from there.
It's a bit like grammar. If you know the rules of the Kings English you can break them with poetic license and it still scans. if you don't know the rules it's just so much gibberish.
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Wed 13 Nov, 2019 6:08 am Post subject: |
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Part of what is being discussed here in the last few posts I think is the nature of the protagonists in many of these films.
It's just a problem with modern genre filmmaking that many directors, writers, showrunners, producers etc. feel like they need to make the protagonist of a movie like Outlaw King or Henry V into some kind of man of the people, lover of democracy, defender of the innocents or what have you.
But I think audiences - or a good part of them - are capable of grasping morally "gray" characters. Like I said, there are kind of fetishized bad guys all over the place in media today. We also have more nuanced 'good guys' who don't always do good things in many popular shows. It's not the 1950's any more, these are some of the most popular and successful shows. Somebody brought up Deadwood - who is the star character of that show? The good guy sheriff? Nope it's murderer and pimp Al Swearingen, who also eventually seems to have a few benign traits to balance out his many bad ones.
For some reason people in charge of these shows can't grasp that characters in a medieval film or series can be more like Al Swearingen and less like the Lone Ranger from a 1930's serial.
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Last edited by Jean Henri Chandler on Wed 13 Nov, 2019 6:35 am; edited 1 time in total
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Ian Hutchison
Location: Louisiana / Nordrhein-Westholland Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 626
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| Posted: Wed 13 Nov, 2019 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | I don't think you'll find morality then vs now as different as is being implied let alone shocking to audiences. |
You may be right Jean, but I meant to discuss historical periods broadly, not just the 15th century (e.g. widespread late 19th century casual racism would probably be regarded as distasteful).
Regarding the impact of war on civil populations, indeed it has become much more deadly in the post-Napoleonic, but almost all agree that it is regrettable, morally gray and if just, should at least not be punitive in nature. I think most people would find the sanctioned sacking of a settlement difficult to reconcile within the usual treatment of the protagonist.
Though, as you say we are seeing more and more 'imperfect' characters recently, however these behaviors are often still presented as flaws and not as a neutral norm. I.e. we are intended to interpret these people as 'gray' (by our standards), when historically their actions may not have been abnormal.
'We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose.' - Adrian Carton de Wiart
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Wed 13 Nov, 2019 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| Ian Hutchison wrote: | | Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | | I don't think you'll find morality then vs now as different as is being implied let alone shocking to audiences. |
You may be right Jean, but I meant to discuss historical periods broadly, not just the 15th century (e.g. widespread late 19th century casual racism would probably be regarded as distasteful). |
You have got a point there Ian without a doubt, some periods are more 'icky' than others from a modern perspective, and a lot of people would struggle to endure racist language in particular, though Deadwood is again an example of where they overcame that.
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Regarding the impact of war on civil populations, indeed it has become much more deadly in the post-Napoleonic, but almost all agree that it is regrettable, morally gray and if just, should at least not be punitive in nature. I think most people would find the sanctioned sacking of a settlement difficult to reconcile within the usual treatment of the protagonist. |
True, but I would argue that was considered aberrant in a lot of Europe and could get you in trouble prior to the 16th Century. Read the link I posted on the Landfrieden.
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Though, as you say we are seeing more and more 'imperfect' characters recently, however these behaviors are often still presented as flaws and not as a neutral norm. I.e. we are intended to interpret these people as 'gray' (by our standards), when historically their actions may not have been abnormal. |
I think in some of the cases mentioned, they are portrayed as normal. In Game of Thrones (fantasy based largely on historical premise) we see characters who are definitely shades of gray, struggling with the notions of what it meant to be moral.
Part of the confusion here in terms of character motivations is that a lot of historical films to date deal only with the princely estates. Princes tended to be pretty ruthless especially toward the lower orders so it's hard to make them seem sympathetic. One way is to portray their enemies as even meaner. Another is to try to cast them as a reformer but that can be a slippery slope into making a medieval prince into a postmodern cartoon.
It's worth pointing out though that other estates had a lot of power in Continental Europe and didn't always rationalize things the same way as princes did. There were burghers, lower ranking nobility, the Church, powerful heretical sects, religious Orders, University scholars and peasant clans, who all had different points of view in different eras and in different regions, and in many places had power to enforce their own agendas. Princes frequently had to contend with these other estates and that was sometimes a moderating factor in their thinking.
Part of the problem with modern people understanding the pre-industrial world is in grasping just how multi-faceted it sometimes was, how many different ways of thinking there were. But I don't think that hinders storytelling, to the contrary it gives you much more to work with.
The question remains do you assume the audience cant handle nuance or complexity? I think the answer is clearly that some of them can. The mentality of the "showrunners" and directors is just lagging. Maybe a good genre film won't ever be the moneymaker that a comic book movie, cartoon or romcom can be, but there clearly is an audience.
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Jonathan Dean
Location: Australia Joined: 16 Feb 2019
Posts: 81
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| Posted: Wed 13 Nov, 2019 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Ian Hutchison wrote: | | Jonathan Dean wrote: |
If you want to focus on social issues, the similarities between the treatment of medieval victims of rape and domestic violence by the community as a whole and the modern treatment of them by society as a whole is uncomfortably similar. Elements of religious violence and discrimination, ethnic violence and discrimination, discrimination by the wealthy against the poor, etc, etc can at times seem all too similar to the modern world. |
These are exactly the kind of situation that I think illustrate my point. To the modern viewer, the depiction of certain situations, however analogous they may be to events/issues in our time, might engender reactions which are quite unlike those which would be appropriate for the contemporary population and the protagonist. How then will we identify with them? What if the protagonist engages in these situations and considers it completely normal or just?
For example, the retributions exacted against populations who forced a siege rather than surrender, or all kinds of religious persecution. |
In my mind, just because an action is considered just does not mean that it sits well with whoever carries it out. This is probably mostly not true for the Middle Ages, but it's also a little white lie that could be true and which sits much better with a modern audience. A morally conflicted character who leans towards our way of thinking would be a major draw card for a modern audience. Given how many popular characters of current fantasy and historical fiction series are awful, awful people, I think the modern audience is going to be much more receptive of medieval morality than you give them credit for.
| Quote: | | To us those acts would be inexcusable, in the mind of our protagonist (and maybe even the victims) they would be par for the course, a fact of life, an expected outcome, even just. How will the point the writer/director wants to make be driven home when these actions are normalized and approved of in their context? How will modern audiences identify with characters, especially protagonists, who condone this and do not even question it? The easy solution is either to have the characters act ahistorically , or do not depict situations/realities which would betray attitudes that alienate us. |
The easy solution, sure, but the more difficult solution is to blend the two, with characters seriously question the morality of conventionally accepted methods of warfare and no close up shots of babies on pikes. I'd also suggest not focusing on the ones making the decisions, but on those affected by them, in a position to have moral objections to them (i.e. particularly caring clergy) or, if you want to make a point about the gradual brutalisation and learned callousness of career soldiers constantly at war, those carrying them out. Preferably, you would combine all three types of perspectives in order to develop a composite picture of the whole.
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Zach Gordon
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| Posted: Wed 20 Nov, 2019 5:22 am Post subject: |
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So after being the one to post this --I only finally got the chance to see it last night.
I think the critiques of Agincourt were spot on, but other than that.. I have to say I disagree with most here.
Was it perfect? No. Emphatically not. This is the correct step for Hollywood though! Compare it to films made a few years back, like Braveheart, or Gladiator, or Robin Hood (any of them), or even Kingdom of Heaven. This was a massive step in the right direction. The swords, belts, suspensions, daggers, etc.. were as accurate as possible. The armour didn't look great (Robert Pattinson's was particularly awful).. but it was still armour.. not some sort of weird leather contraption ala Braveheart.. and I thought touches towards accuracy like painting armour with coats of arms, and showing the characters wearing pourpoints was a great addition. Also keeping away from *everyone* wearing *the exact same armour* or giving 'good guys' one armour and 'bad guys' another... (something even Dunkirk basically did, with painting the aircraft).. was another great nod to accuracy.
Then we have things like the duel between the Prince of Wales and Henry Percy --ok, inaccurate that they did the duel-- but they were copying from Shakespeare here, not history, and this is the thing. That was *the best* display of armoured combat I have seen in *any* Hollywood film. They didn't just swing at each other and chop through the armour with swords (even as recently as Outlaw King they did this!!), they half-sworded, grappled, went to the ground, regained measure, and fought like armoured combatants in WMA/HEMA do. They clearly had someone advising this. The fight choreography here was more realistic than Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Braveheart, Outlaw King, Gladiator, etc, etc, etc. (I include fantasy in here, because fighting with swords is still fighting with swords).
This was not a re-enactment, and the story line has more in line with Shakespeare, but to me this was a *massive* step in the right direction. There were problems like drab colours, but there were colours (not everything grey/brown)! There was odd clothing, but there was tailoring and arming clothes (so often skipped)! There were 'hoodie' mail coifs, but there was RIVETED MAIL, and mail pieces sewn into pour points, not just shirts.. and a variety in the style and appearance of the mail! They had proper swords and sword belts (I cringe when I look at some of the Kingdom of Heaven Swords). They wore things like leather bracers and stuff... but they also showed tooled leather and designs consistent with medieval leather making! Beautiful pouches and bags. And "home" at the various buildings and castles they showed panelled and painted walls, with correct furniture, and complex dishes --it wasn't roasted turkey legs and fire torches in wrought iron brackets.
And unlike the previous Henry V... no one was lifted to horse by a giant winch!
This was not a perfect film, it did not have perfect material culture, but again --we aren't the audience-- and this was, imo, the direction future "medieval" films should be taking. It better grasped the time period than kilted whisky drinking face painted nutters!
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Wed 20 Nov, 2019 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Zach Gordon wrote: | | And unlike the previous Henry V... no one was lifted to horse by a giant winch! |
Yep. Historically, that happened with Henry VIII (siege of Boulogne), not Henry V.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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